-Stephen Wright
Grady saw this quote and thought it was hilarious and I thought so too. . . .until we realized that WE WERE having twins and the likelihood that my scatterbrained personality was likely to do just that.
Let's start at the beginning. Grady was deployed to Afghanistan from January to July 2011, the news of his deployment was a shock to us both and definitely reminded me that life in the military is never predictable nor compassionate to the individual plans of its service members. Well we showed them!! Grady arrived back in Shreveport on July 28th, greeted by family and friends, it was quite an exciting day. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family that will travel to welcome Grady as well as a church family that totally pulled out all the stops to make Grady's homecoming one of the most memorable events in our lives.
On Sept 10th, we were very excited to have my parents stopping by for a visit and then later that day Grady's friend, Jeff, was passing through Shreveport and spent the night with us. We got up that morning and went to the Farmer's Market, one of our favorite Saturday morning rituals, and I had lots of errands that I wanted to run and things to do around the house. . . but I couldn't- this overwhelming tiredness overtook me- how could I be so tired - I just woke up from 8 straight hours of sleep and 3 hours later I couldn't do anything but lay on the couch and sleep some more. When my parents did arrive, I was not a good hostess, barely got off the couch and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep during our visit- although my mom did help me throw up a few of my fall decorations. And that was just about the only thing we got accomplished. It was until later that night that I was convinced that I was pregnant since we took Jeff to one of our favorite restaraunts in Shreveport and NOTHING looked good to me. That was only the beginning of the tell tale signs of being pregnant. I won't go into detail, and of course most pregnant women go through the same thing, but when its happening to you- you couldn't imagine being any sicker than what was to come in the 12 weeks. We went on our major vacation of the year in October, that was planned out well before Grady arrived home for Afghanistan, to Seaside, Florida- if we would have know how awful the trip would have been- we probably would have cancelled it. I left the condo maybe 4 times the whole week only to be brought home abruptly. The weather was beautiful- so said Grady- since I was unable to head to the beach. Have you ever been nauseated at the beach? There aren't a lot of options out there!! Needless to say I owe Grady big time for that vacation. But to be quite honest he overlooked all that after our next dr. appt. It was time for our second ultrasound and that is when I heard the sound that I will never forget until I die. The sound of two heartbeats and the image of 2 tiny "tadpoles" as my mother-in-law calls them. We were beyond thrilled and I can say that I have never seen Grady be so happy since I've known him. THIS WAS AWESOME!!! Although I was equally excited, the thought of jumping up and down, squealing, or any other act that I would normally partake in was minimized due to the "all day" morning sickness that I experienced.
Our twins! Since we aren't finding out the gender of our twins, we call them Baby A (on the bottom) and Baby B (on the top) - who looks like he (I feel like Baby B is a "He") is sucking his thumb.
This is a 4-D ultrasound of Baby A. Smiling!!
Baby B- Propped up on both hands- probably deep in thought!
The pregnancy went on without a hitch- I eventually started feeling better and resume normal activities like cooking supper, washing clothes and even smiling. We see Dr. Kerry Tynes, our OB-GYN, every month but due to the fact we were expecting twins, she wanted us to meet Dr. Jones, a perinatalogist, who specializes in all high risk pregnancies. I don't really like the term High Risk but anytime there are two babies then there comes double the risks of complications and its just safer to have a specialist checking on the babies to monitor their growth along the way. Dr. Tynes has been my dr. since we moved to Shreveport and I absolutley love her. She is young, energetic, and very smart but a little too pretty for my liking especially now since Grady comes with me to all my appointments and quite frankly its humiliating has I try to hoist my every expanding self onto the exam table while she stands by patiently waiting with her tiny waist and measuring tape so she can announce to Grady and I exactly how much I have expanded!! She basically reminds me of cheerleader that you really don't want to like but can't help but be taken over by her contagiously good natured attitude. Dr. Jones, the perinatogist, is the exact opposite. Our first visit with him was not one of my favorites, other than the fact that we got to really watch our 2 babies playing with each other. At that point, the looked like real babies (not tadpoles) and still had enough room in my tummy to really move around. We got to see them yawn and kick at each other and its was at the point Grady and I were totally in love with our babies. When we first met with Dr. Jones we pretty much went over every statistic about twins that you could imagine-none of which I could remember or care to since most of them weren't good- but what I DO remember was that he never looked at me- he looked at Grady the entire time. We thought that was strange. As we have met with Dr. Jones more, he has become less "gloom and doom" but he stills talks to Grady instead of me. When we went for our 24 week visit with him- it actually was Doom and Gloom time. We found out that I was having contractions and it was just way too early for that to happen. He told me to go home for strict bedrest and come back tomorrow and to have my bags packed for a hospital stay. WHAT?!?! I was so shocked and upset - it was probably the worst that I have ever felt in my life. I had been having contractions for a while and just didn't know it. Although he explained that this does happen in 50% of twin pregnancies- I couldn't believe it was happening to us. Then I went through everything that I could have done wrong to have started the contractions- did I work too much, did I carry something too heavy, should I have eaten healthier throughout the pregnancy? Grady was very supportive through out this time and he made it very clear to me that there was nothing that I did wrong and he didn't blame me for this happening- but still - It's an awful feeling. On top of the fact that I was on bedrest- Grady had shoulder surgery 3 days prior to this news. He was still on prescription pain meds so he was unable to drive- so what's better, a hysterical hormonal pregnant lady in preterm labor or a super relaxed, although heavily medicated, man drive us home? I drove home. . . . and then Grady never took another pain pill after that. He was home from work for the next 10 days for his surgery so luckily that worked out well and he was able to take care of me, even though I should have been taking care of him!! I would see him wince in pain as he brought me my pills, or food, or water (with just the right amount of ice and a straw). If anything, this experience has shown me that he is going to make an amazing dad, putting his own discomfort aside and taking care of me- which ultimately means taking care of our sweet babies. I knew before I married Grady that I was getting a great guy but this has taken it to a whole new level. Sometimes I really don't even think I deserve someone so wonderful- and let's just hope that he never realizes this and leaves me because, let's face it, there is NO WAY I could raise these babies on my own.
So this is where we are in the pregnancy so far. We see either Dr. Tynes or Dr. Jones every week sometimes twice a week. They are both very concerned about the babies and are watching closely for any changes. Although I am probably overly critical of Dr. Jones, in the last few weeks, I have never felt more relieved that he is my Dr. When things aren't looking good- we really made us feel better by being very confident that he was doing everything that he could to have our babies arrive into this world safely. We are praying to make it to 28 weeks but even better would be 32 weeks. If we can go longer, then that would be perfect but all we can do now is pray that the babies stay where they are and that they continue to grow and arrive as healthy as can be!!
